Monday, August 30, 2010

Rogers is Evil

We have our home internet service through Rogers. While it usually works reasonably well, when it doesn't, it is really hell trying to go through Rogers customer service.

Here's what happened this weekend. I arrived home, back from Oberwolfach, and our internet service was down. So we tried to call Rogers 24-hour line for internet problems. However, their voice mail menu was also acting strangely. First, it asked me to enter the digits of my postal code, and when I did this, it then said "That was not a valid response." After a second go-round, it then connected me with the Rogers credit department -- not the Internet problem line -- which then provided the helpful message "The Rogers credit department is now closed. Please call back during regular business hours".

Pushing 0 at any point did not help. Either it said "That was not a valid response", or it transferred me to the credit department. We tried over and over again, trying to enter different numbers, etc. We also called other Rogers numbers. Nothing worked.

We eventually got through by calling Rogers from a different phone. So somehow it is recognizing my home phone number and then acting strangely.

Then this morning I tried to explain to Rogers that their voice mail was not working. What a waste of time that was! They seemed completely uninterested in the fact that it is badly broken, and several people I spoke to did not even believe it. Nor are they willing to give me a call when it is fixed. So here I am with no internet and no direct way of calling Rogers from my home phone to report it!

Still not convinced? How about the way they handle distribution of the iPhone 4? Since I'm back from a sabbatical in the US, I'm in the market for a new cell phone. Rogers had a website where you could sign up for iPhone 4 updates. But then it arrived in stores with no notification to me. And now, if you want one, there's no waiting list you can join. If you want one, you just have to show up at a store when they open, hoping this will be your lucky day. There's no rational basis for this kind of crappy product distribution.

How does such a billion-dollar company survive with such lousy customer service?

10 comments:

Here here. Rogers reminds of the Air Canada - a cargo-cult company with all the trappings of a real corporation until you actually have to deal with them. Then you realize it's run by sadistic and disinterested incompetents who want to do nothing but sit on their fat, government subsidized monopoly asses.

Lack of competition! They survive because their competitors (Bell, Telus) suck just as hardcore as they do. Of course you could switch to a reseller like TekSavvy, but not enough people know about these smaller businesses to influence the policies of the big three.

I recently switched from Videotron to Distributel (both Quebec companies, not sure what is available in other provinces) and I've never been happier. The times I've had to call them I've never been put on hold, and the support assistants were very helpful and spoke English fluently.

To say that Dr. Shallit's problems are unique or acceptable would be foolish. And their handling if the iPhone 4 release has been abysmal (I talked to a rep at the Apple store, and he said that of the three carriers, Rogers was by far the worst for getting phones activated, and woe betide the poor Apple rep who had to call for phone support...).

However, I must give them some credit in an unrelated area: Their cell coverage (at least in the Vancouver area) is fantastic. Whenever I cross the border to the US and my iPhone switches to AT&T, it's like someone has reached inside my device and removed some fundamental but non-obvious piece of Apple magic. The battery drains faster, the data access is slower and spottier, the voice calls don't sound as good. Itemizing the issues doesn't do it justice, though. It fundamentally feels it's gotten worse in some real but intangible way.

So, please, rag on Rogers. Switch (or at least threaten to switch) to see if we can convince them to improve their customer service. But let's not forget that they have at least gotten some important things right.

I found that Roger's complaint line was helpful. When you don't get satisfaction with your complaints, you can go up the food-chain. There is a spot where you can direct your complaints to a vice president.

At work, we had a similar technique. You brought your problems to your supervisor; if that didn't work, you could bring your concerns to the manager, and then the general manager (but first you had to go through human resources, who would try to dissuade you from talking to the general manager).

Suppport the small companies. Acanac ADSL costs less than any of the alternatives, and they seem to actually care about their customers. They're currently fighting a court battle, trying to get the CRTC to stop Bell from capping and limiting the bandwidth which it provides to resellers. If you need a VOIP phone or internet service, give them a call - I can gaurantee they're far better than the alternatives.

I was subjected to similar mistreatment for about a week until I told them I would refuse to pay for the days the service was down. Then they suddenly got into action and everything was fixed within a couple of days (major work was needed to repair the problem).

I had the same problem just now. Tried hiding my caller ID, which at least got me a different computerized operator. But in the end.. transferred me back to the credit department. Any alternative high speed internet providers to recommend in the Ottawa area?